Plague Monkey

Not much posting over the weekend, since the Adorable Husband brought the plague home from work and promptly gave it to me. I actually stayed home sick on Friday (and considering that I was working from home, I felt bad enough not to even try to work and just went back up to bed) and spent the rest of the weekend trying not to fall into a Nyquil-induced stupor. I'm fairly certain that my brain is liquifying and draining out my nose in the form of Snot. Lots and lots and lots of snot. Ugh. Then, of course, the coughing sets in. I slept on the couch most of the weekend.

We did get out and about a bit -- went to The Taste of Louisville on Saturday and wandered a bit along the main street until rain drove us back to the car, and then went over to make an appearance at Rainer's graduation open house before I crashed. We stopped at home only long enough to realize that the painters were trying to gas us out of the house.

Ah -- I should explain. The painters arrived on Thursday and sprayed the walls and ceilings downstairs. The purple is LOVELY. Then they came on Friday to paint trim. We went downstairs after they left and it was...awful. I don't know if it was bad paint, thinned too much, too thick, or what -- but the paint had just slid off the trim in some places, leaving rivulets and blobs and a completely uneven surface. It looked as if it had just been glopped on and when it was partially dry, another layer was sprayed on. I think that they tried to spray a second coat before the first was entirely dry? We took pictures and sent off an email to the contractor, basically asking, "what the hell?" Obviously there had been some sort of problem. I had no doubt that they were going to fix it, but 'fixing' in my mind was not just repainting, but sanding a LOT.

So, at 8;30 on Saturday, the painters returned and, apparently, were using solvent to remove the paint from the trim and start again. It smelled so strongly of paint thinner/airplane glue in the house we were a bit concerned for the guys in the basement. It was unbearable -- and even though it was 90+ degrees outside, we opened the whole house and fled.

But, it seems to have worked. After another day of work, the paint is smooth and neat. Much, much better. We've been very happy with all the work the contractor has done -- even if they don't seen to be able to stick to a schedule to save their lives. I know that it's a busy season, and that it's hard to get everything scheduled tightly, but....c'mon, people -- let's have a reasonable schedule and communicate changes. The Adorable Husband reminded me (just as I was going to launch into a truly great rant) that we did tell them that we weren't on a tight schedule, had basically said, "whenever" when asked when it needed to be done. So -- we reaped what we sowed, I guess. Perhaps if I'd been more pushy about sticking to the schedule before, we wouldn't have any problems now. I'm getting a bit irked that the contractor hasn't called me to "check in" at all in the last two weeks. I've been travelling, it's true, but they should still pop by to make sure things are going ok. I'm pretty much home full-time after this week (working on a local project) so we should see better progress, I hope.

There is still some touch up to do for painting, but I imagine that they'll have the carpet in this week and the electricians and plumbers back to wrap up. The purple velvet drapes (10 pairs) arrived last week, and the theater chairs are being delivered to a local moving company in a few days, to be delivered to us when the carpet goes in. Everything else is staged and ready to go!